musical musings from the frozen north:
torontopia, mont royal city and kawartha kottages

Monday, September 24, 2012

Pre-Polaris: Yamantaka / Sonic Titan

Tonight I’m
part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today,
my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night.
What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation
at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely
one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Yamantaka/Sonic
Titan – s/t

First
impressions:

This is the
only shortlist album that I didn’t write a review of at the time of its
release. Why? Because I didn’t really know what to make of it, and I didn’t
think the readers of my small-town newspaper were dying to know my opinion of
it.

For an excellent introduction to what this band is about, read Benjamin Boles's cover story in Now Magazine a couple of weeks ago here. Or Stuart Berman's buzz-building Pitchfork review here.

Pros:

--Opening
track “Raccoon Song” is a haunting incantation set to a thunderstorm, leading
right into “Queens,” which begins with a sing-song Asian melody over a droning,
John Lord-organ for a good two minutes before Bonhamesque drums come crashing
in. Ever wondered what Yoko Ono would sound like with Led Zeppelin? Now you
know, and it’s awesome, and perhaps the most powerful beginning of any of the
shortlisted albums.

--“Oak of
Guernica” and “Murder of a Spider” are decent psych-folk tracks and welcome
left turns—on an album that’s full of them.

--“Hoshi
Neko” owes a debt to Stereolab and Neu!, and Kato Attwood’s vocals are at their
most effective and chilling here.

--“Crystal
Fortress Over the Sea of Trees” manages to get some seriously jazz-fusion
keyboard licks into an instrumental psych-metal track, and Alaska B’s drums are
at their most thunderous here.

Cons:

--“Reverse
Crystal” isn’t much more than a relentless B-list Black Sabbath track with
better singing and a Rick Wakeman organ interlude

--After the
interesting doom-ambient beginning of “A Star Over Pureland,” the track quickly
devolves into sludgy, repetitive metal with a not-great guitar solo, concluding
with a cacophony of howling, screeching primal screams and ululations over the
same beat.

--For a
band that shows great promise, they don’t fully deliver here. I expect great things
from them, but I have trouble listening all the way through an album so short
that it barely squeaked by Polaris qualifications for length.

Things I’m
not supposed to consider:

It’s
tempting to say that this is entirely original and that no one else in Canada
is doing it—except that a lot of people are doing this and have been doing this
since the ’70s, the only difference this time being a) it’s better than most
psychedelic rock made in the past 35 years; b) an Asian woman is singing, and
c) apparently the live shows have more of a theatrical bent to them (the one I
saw merely featured makeup). The best and worst thing about this album is that
it would be a typical Polaris wild card winner: brand new band, split between
Montreal and Toronto, unusual sound, next to zero promotional hype but heaps of
critical acclaim, interesting story and concepts outside of the music itself.
It’s also the first primarily Asian-Canadian act to be shortlisted.